Cilla - free pattern!

Another day I thought to myself: why don’t I have any knitted headwear that I’d love to wear on a daily basis? I live on a cold climate after all and those headpieces are so fast and nice to knit. Then I started to collect a list of properties of my preferred knitted headwear.

It should be simple. Allthough I love skillfully made embellishments, my everyday style is more or less minimalistic and straightforward, so there is no order for frills this time.
In spite of that it should add some spice to my everyday outfits AND look good on top of my locks.
I would love if there were several ways to wear it.
It should be made of 100% wool.
It should leave no marks on forehead when weared extended times - i want a loose knit.
It should be large enough to cover all my hair - even when my mane is in it’s long state.
And ohh, what if it would go well together with my beloved Lumi Accessories handbag!

cilla1.jpg

So I took my DPN:s and some worsted weight wool in perfect petroleum blue shade to meet some friends of mine at the local pub. Few hours of knitting with couple of pints of decent lager and I had a simple ribbed hat on my needles. On the next morning (there was no hangover, if you asked) I fitted and finished Cilla - a slouchy convertible ribbed beanie of mine.

cilla6.jpg

The basic form is all about the slouchiness and the size - just right, roomy enough to cover the hair and give a nice silhouette. And I love the bold colour, too!

cilla5.jpg

It can be easily moulded to resemble a beret. (Gee, I hate to model my crafts…). This form can be emphasized even more by wet blocking the beanie to shape.

cilla4.jpg

Or the edge can be turned up for a sporty version of a beanie (not exactly my preferred style but might be handy sometimes…).

And here we go: this is my first free pattern!

Download the PDF here. NOTE: pattern updated for sizing information!

To be honest there is not much pattern in this, but I really needed something very simple to start with, just to get going easily. And I wanted to sample some fonts and basic layout of a pattern. All feedback about pattern, instructions, layout etc. is highly appreciated!



7 Responses to “Cilla - free pattern!”

  1. ruth Says:

    February 9th, 2008 at 8:07 pm

    You need to photograph the hat against a light background. You can hardly see it here, and I bet it’s charming.

  2. Kelly Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 12:51 am

    How utterly charming! I don’t have any problems with the photographs, but I do have a question about the hat - You mentioned loose knit, but does it grip the head nicely? I find that, especially with silky hair, most all of my knit hats just slip right off.

  3. Amanda Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 2:08 am

    Thanks for the free pattern - it’s awesome, and I can’t wait to knit one up!

  4. Kamicha Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 10:21 am

    Thank you all!

    Ruth: image quality in this blog will definitely improve when spring goes on further - it is awfully dark in here in this time of year. That dark background does not help either, but it actually is a massive block of cabinets, hard to get rid off. Other wall in our lightest room is pale, but photographing to that direction needs more arrangements, so I usually end up taking photos in front of the cabinets.

    Kelly: I tried to balance between looseness and grip enoug to keep the thing on slippery hair. You probably can see from these images that my hair is very fine and silky too, and I have similar problems to keep those hats on, especially when I wear my hair straight. And my head shape does not help either. I wouldn’t bet this to keep in head on stormy day, though, when weared on back on the head like in the second pic!

    I purposefully chose somewhat coarse wool to add some grip. The first 3 cm or so of this hat is fitting quite closely, the volume of the “hat body” is created by increasing on the purl bands of the rib after that edge - actually the volume addition is so large that the beret shape can be easily moulded out - but if you want the pull of the ribbing keeps the shape of beanie quite easily, too. My advice would be to fit the edge band carefully to your own head, small adjustments could be done by decreasing the needle size on the first rounds, but the pattern is very easy to size down (or up) in 4 sts increments.

  5. kris Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

    thanks for sharing! i love it, particularly as a beret.

  6. Kelly Says:

    February 11th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

    Thanks, K! I did notice your own very silky hair, which is why I thought you would be qualified to answer. ;) Great pattern.

  7. Knit in Denmark Says:

    February 13th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    I’ll definitely be making one of these, thanks a lot :) It’s really a cool hat - simple and beautiful.

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